Fractal: Scale Bitcoin + Boost Miner Revenue.

Is Bitcoin’s most active scaling solution already here?

Fractal’s rapid hashrate growth and transaction growth suggest it might be.

A new report by Blockspace Media breaks down Fractal Bitcoin, the chain that’s quietly achieved:

🔸 ~80%+ of Bitcoin’s hashrate via merged mining

🔸 11 M+ daily transactions (comparable to Solana & Base)

Powered by Cadence Mining, a novel hybrid block production model, and seamless onboarding via UniSat, Fractal is emerging as Bitcoin’s most used innovation layer.

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BRC-20 2.0 gets release date as metaprotocols enter new era

BestInSlot founder Binari says the BRC-20 protocol upgrade, BRC-20 2.0, is “scheduled to go live September 2.” The protocol adds trade and execution capabilities to the indexer/sequencers that power the BRC-20 metaprotocol. This comes amid a general maturation of indexer-powered metaprotocols such as Alkanes, TRAC, and Runes. This past week, metaprotocols comprised over 50% of all transactions on Bitcoin. - link

OUR TAKE: If you haven’t been dialed into the degens lately, know that they’ve started getting some serious engineering firepower behind their schemes. 

And while the market capitalization for Runes, BRC-20, and other metaprotocols declined around -50% in 2025, the infrastructure and market integrations of these token protocols has improved significantly.

Recall the famous metaprotocol explosion of late 2023 when new token speculation drove Bitcoin fees 50x-100x for several weeks straight. At the time, the market dramatically outpaced available tooling – marketplaces couldn’t pull together the infrastructure to track and list tokens, wallets weren’t able to accomodate new protocols quickly enough, and the new Bitcoin asset ecosystem was fragmented and chaotic. 

Speculators would rush to mint tokens according to some new protocol only to find that they couldn’t buy/sell reliably and wallets wouldn’t cooperate with the new schemes. This fragmented liquidity and created strong headwinds for broader ecosystem adoption, particularly for getting metaprotocol tokens listed on centralized exchanges.

Since then, we’ve seen BTCfi/Bitcoin assets lay important groundwork for standardization and infrastructure. 

An underrated phenomenon I’ve seen is the amount of “serious” Bitcoin developers spending time considering metaprotocols. This past weekend at Pleb.fi in Miami, one of the most interesting hackathons I’ve seen spun out some of the craziest new metaprotocol schemes I can imagine. 

One team put inscriptions in the Taproot control block (Labubu Assets), another hacked together buy-to-inscribe schemes utilizing Merkle-ized Taptrees, and Jeremy Rubin figured out how to run Ethereum in the Taproot Annex.

Yes, it appears that we figured out how to actually run Ethereum on Bitcoin with no soft fork.

Many of these are kinda hairbrained ideas – surely nobody would actually do that, right? 

Well, a few years ago we all agreed you had to be crazy to think we could do NFTs on Bitcoin. If the market wants to go wild again, the engineers are there to support it.

-CBS

Bitmain is importing more raw materials to the U.S.

The largest ASIC miner manufacturer in the world is importing raw materials for their ASICs into the U.S.. According to The Miner Mag, Bitmain shipped 187,000 kilograms of raw materials into the U.S. over June and July. — link 

OUR TAKE: If you can’t beat ‘em (the gubment), join them (on-shore manufacturing to the U.S.).

Certainly seems like Bitmain is trying to scale up its U.S. ASIC fabrication to avoid tariffs, a great irony considering the company offshored most of its manufacturing to Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries to avoid the tariffs President Trump lobbed at China in his first term.

Now that said, 187 kilogram tons isn’t that much. Sure, it’s as much as a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet or an adult male Blue Whale and the weight would crush the life out of any of us. But it still pales in comparison to how much hardware Bitmain currently produces in other countries.

All things being equal, the raw material could be enough to manufacture ~10,300 Antminer S23s (~$98.2 million worth of hardware). One purchase order from a major public bitcoin miner could gobble up this supply in an afternoon.

So for now, the imports are notable, but they aren’t going to move the needle for U.S.-based ASIC manufacturing.

That said, the news does come a few weeks after Congress passed the Big Beautiful Bill, and one of many changes to the tax code in the bill allows for manufacturers and producers to deduct 100% of their real estate costs the same year they get a facility running.

So maybe Bitmain is doing its best to duck Trump’s tariffs (at least in part) by taking advantage of the new tax rules in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.

-CMH

Luxor x Hive Digital: Global Growth, Zero Headaches

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Peter Thiel–backed Plasma raises $373M in oversubscribed token Sale, far surpassing $50M goal

Stablecoin‑focused Bitcoin sidechain Plasma raised $373 million in a public token sale, more than seven times its initial target. Backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, it plans to launch with $1 billion in stablecoins locked and promises fee‑free transfers. - link

SEC approves in‑kind Redemptions for spot bitcoin ETFs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has permitted in-kind creations and redemptions for spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, allowing authorized participants to exchange ETF shares directly for the underlying crypto assets rather than cash. This aligns the digital asset ETF models to traditional commodity ETPs. - link

SEC Chair Paul Atkins unveils "Project Crypto" initiative

In a landmark speech Thursday, SEC Chair Paul S. Atkins announced Project Crypto – a regulatory roadmap to establish the United States as the global leader in digital finance. The initiative aims to simplify token classification, enable tokenized securities, support on-chain trading, and streamline oversight for both crypto securities and stablecoins. - link